So this will be a bit barebones but I've been brewing on MTGA and haven't found the right list yet but there is a very powerful sultai grindy midrange/reanimator deck in standard right now. The core of the deck is really similar to the golgari graveyard decks discussed here and here and I highly suggest you check them out because they are both more thorough than this write up is.
But by not splashing blue we miss out on three incredibly powerful cards (as well as a slew of other useful ones). First is Dream Eater and this big nasty is a really powerful. 6 mana is a lot for the 4/3 body but the bounce buys a lot of time for us to stabilize and the surveil is great for fueling the next two cards and setting up our draws to be gas in the late game. The next two cards are a package but work so well together. Mission Briefing and Connive // Concoct provide an incredibly robust reanimation package that is so much more reliable than the path to eternity package in the linked lists. It's more expensive but it gives you up to 8 reanimation cards that also fill your graveyard. Several times I've hail mary'd a Concoct with a Doom Whisperer in my bin knowing it wouldn't be enough needing to hit either Izoni, Thousand-Eyed or Dream Eater and the Surveil 3 got me there. Playing the 4 mission briefing also lets us have more copies of our powerful removal in our deck and powers up the Necrotic Wounds further.
Now this deck has some definite weaknesses, it very much struggles with graveyard hate and it has some incredibly clunky draws and needs refining. But it is incredibly powerful and the Mission Briefing/Concoct engine is strong. Because it's MTGA I haven't been trying to build a sideboard at all but there are plenty of powerful options in these colors. Sinister Sabotage and Thought Erasure are decent options that also keep fueling the graveyard plan. And that's without getting into situational haymakers like Unmoored Ego or Pelakka Wurm.
I've faced something similar on Arena. It would have definitely caught me off guard if I wasn't playing a pure control deck. When I'm able to I'll test this but I don't have teh wildcards for it right now. Just a few thoughts;
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
While I see why you have Narcomoeba in your list, I don't think it provides enough value, even though its free. Its still just a 1/1 flyer and I think u can put more powerful cards in that spot
Mission briefing doesn't do much here so I would get rid of it. Also, Underrealm Lich is a must. That card is bonkers in this deck. Run 3. Why no Glowspore Shaman?That's an engine for the deck that can also get you land drops. Replace Branchwalker with this. Llanowar Elves is probably a necessary evil if you want to play Notion Rain on turn two which, digging 4 cards,feeding your grave,and drawing two cards as early as turn 2, is pretty sick.
@Moush Muldrotha is very slow and not a game ending body on it's own. It could be a 1 or 2 of but I'm not convinced it belongs in the deck. Definitely haven't tested with it though so I could very well be wrong. Compared to Izoni and Dream Eater it's much less board presence. And Doom Whisperer get's it's value quicker, even if it's much less value. Muldrotha is stronger than any of them over a series of turns but I'm not expecting my first or second threat to survive that long.
@Infallible If I was going to go below 4 briefing I'd cut the azcanta's too. 4 might be too many but it's really powerful with the Necrotic Wounds. BBUU exile two creatures is very powerful and efficient. I'll try testing with 2-3 later on today.
As for the Chupacabra there probably should be some amount but I can't imagine reanimating it often (Dream Eater would be the choice in most sitautions over it). I'll try it as a 2 of to start and see how it feels.
@Jobuno It's probably too cute. I added it because I was getting stomped by red decks and it's very cute with Midnight Reaper but you're right it's probably not worth the slot.
@Unisom Strongly disagree on Mission Briefing. I think it's the 5th best (nonland) card in the deck (Supplier, Dream Eater, Trophy, Connive//Concoct, then Briefing). It's so flexible in the deck and gives it much needed consistency. With all of the self mill having mission briefing's just allows the deck to hit it's game plan regardless of what we're milling.
Glowspore is directly competeing with the Branchwalkers. And it's a really tough call between the two. I've been favoring the branchwalker because it can spike the land immediately, but it's definitely less likely to give one for the following turn. I started with 2/2 before ending up with 4 branchwalkers. I'm not convinced I made the right call but I was usually happier with the Merfolk. Very probably made the wrong choice. Also strongly possible that I should have at least 6 of these two cards in the deck. Going back to the idea of cutting the Narco's I'm going to try -4 Narcomoeba's -1 Mission Briefing +3 Glowspore Shaman +2 Ravenous Chupacabra
I don't think the deck wants to play notion rain. Maybe I'm badly underestimating the card but it doesn't seem good. I'll give it a try after I get off work today but doesn't seem worth it. And I cut the Llanowar's because the deck basically has no 3 drops and since I'm trying to go to the late game they make horrible topdecks.
On Underrealm Lich I'm just not seeing it. The body is underwhelming and it doesn't have an EtB. The activated ability seems like a worse life sink than Doom Whisperer's. It looks much more like an EDH card than a standard one to me.
Ive been grinding sultai reanimator. I started with a bunch of blue cards and ended on just a single muldrotha, your deck should probably have glowspore shaman to start with and fewer non creature spells. moulderhulk has also been pretty fantastic2-4 mana 6/6 that puts a land into play is preeeeeeety good.
also lotleth giant for the combo finish? ive concocted a 10 point giant on a few occasions
Holy crap. I've totally been playing with Moudlerhulk. So that list is wrong... Not sure what's wrong about it though. Maybe it wasn't 4 Doom Whisperer's...
I'll have to double check my list later.
Anyway what's your reanimation suite whiffy? Connive//Concoct has been so good for me.
I was running some concoct, some masouleam secrets to find it or my little tool box, Im also real big on golgari findbroker with a playset. I would also like to try some eldest reborn to realllllly grind people with findbroker.
Ive been grinding it all week, and have slowly moved to a more aggro/midrange golgari pile, but I cant cut mudrotha, its rediculos if it sticks in play for more then 1 untap. i have 4 of both self mill 3 guys, and 4 findbrokers to "reanimate" stuff out of my yard.
Findbroker seems good. Don't think my mana could support it, but in straight (or just splashing a tiny amount of blue for Muldrotha) golgari that seems good.
I was way off on numbers. Was 2 of all the non Moulderhulk fatties and 4 of it. Was also only 3 Connive//Concoct and 3 Assassin's Trophy.
Anyway I added more of the Glowspore's back in and it's playing better. Tried 4 Plaugebearer instead of Chupacabra because 4 feels like a lot of mana against boros and it felt fine. Might jam a copy or 2 of the five mana reanimate a 1, 2, and 3 drop spell. Narcomoeba's and Midnight Reaper were too fancy.
Alright so I've been building toward this list on Arena, I almost have it complete now but it seriously takes A LOT of wildcards. I'm still finishing up the mana base but I only have like 3-4 more lands to get and 3-4 more creatures. Credit to UncageTheRage for posting it up. I am just building the list as they posted it, aside from swapping Vraskas from Vraska, Relic Seeker to Vraska, Golgari Queen, however I think it could benefit from a few changes such as Find // Finality, and maybe some Journey to Eternity or something like that. Here's the list.
My other concern with this list is that there is a lot of blue mana in the main and blue only comes out of the board. I feel like unless I'm bringing in the entire board, there's no way I'm going to need that many blue sources. I'm not fantastic with mana bases so I don't know, maybe it's fine? What do you all think of this list? I see from the previous discussion, perhaps Narcomoeba just isn't enough value to warrant a slot. I think with the Demon of Catastrophes and Vraska, Golgari Queen in the deck though, it could be fine as just sacrifice fodder.
But by not splashing blue we miss out on three incredibly powerful cards (as well as a slew of other useful ones). First is Dream Eater and this big nasty is a really powerful. 6 mana is a lot for the 4/3 body but the bounce buys a lot of time for us to stabilize and the surveil is great for fueling the next two cards and setting up our draws to be gas in the late game. The next two cards are a package but work so well together. Mission Briefing and Connive // Concoct provide an incredibly robust reanimation package that is so much more reliable than the path to eternity package in the linked lists. It's more expensive but it gives you up to 8 reanimation cards that also fill your graveyard. Several times I've hail mary'd a Concoct with a Doom Whisperer in my bin knowing it wouldn't be enough needing to hit either Izoni, Thousand-Eyed or Dream Eater and the Surveil 3 got me there. Playing the 4 mission briefing also lets us have more copies of our powerful removal in our deck and powers up the Necrotic Wounds further.
Now this deck has some definite weaknesses, it very much struggles with graveyard hate and it has some incredibly clunky draws and needs refining. But it is incredibly powerful and the Mission Briefing/Concoct engine is strong. Because it's MTGA I haven't been trying to build a sideboard at all but there are plenty of powerful options in these colors. Sinister Sabotage and Thought Erasure are decent options that also keep fueling the graveyard plan. And that's without getting into situational haymakers like Unmoored Ego or Pelakka Wurm.
Sample list:
4 Watery Grave
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Merfolk Branchwalker
4 Narcomoeba
2 Midnight Reaper
4 Doom Whisperer
3 Dream Eater
2 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
3 Necrotic Wound
2 Search for Azcanta
3 Assassin's Trophy
4 Mission Briefing
4 Connive // Concoct
4 Briefing seems too high and no Ravenous Chupacabra seems wrong.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
@Infallible If I was going to go below 4 briefing I'd cut the azcanta's too. 4 might be too many but it's really powerful with the Necrotic Wounds. BBUU exile two creatures is very powerful and efficient. I'll try testing with 2-3 later on today.
As for the Chupacabra there probably should be some amount but I can't imagine reanimating it often (Dream Eater would be the choice in most sitautions over it). I'll try it as a 2 of to start and see how it feels.
@Jobuno It's probably too cute. I added it because I was getting stomped by red decks and it's very cute with Midnight Reaper but you're right it's probably not worth the slot.
@Unisom Strongly disagree on Mission Briefing. I think it's the 5th best (nonland) card in the deck (Supplier, Dream Eater, Trophy, Connive//Concoct, then Briefing). It's so flexible in the deck and gives it much needed consistency. With all of the self mill having mission briefing's just allows the deck to hit it's game plan regardless of what we're milling.
Glowspore is directly competeing with the Branchwalkers. And it's a really tough call between the two. I've been favoring the branchwalker because it can spike the land immediately, but it's definitely less likely to give one for the following turn. I started with 2/2 before ending up with 4 branchwalkers. I'm not convinced I made the right call but I was usually happier with the Merfolk. Very probably made the wrong choice. Also strongly possible that I should have at least 6 of these two cards in the deck. Going back to the idea of cutting the Narco's I'm going to try -4 Narcomoeba's -1 Mission Briefing +3 Glowspore Shaman +2 Ravenous Chupacabra
I don't think the deck wants to play notion rain. Maybe I'm badly underestimating the card but it doesn't seem good. I'll give it a try after I get off work today but doesn't seem worth it. And I cut the Llanowar's because the deck basically has no 3 drops and since I'm trying to go to the late game they make horrible topdecks.
On Underrealm Lich I'm just not seeing it. The body is underwhelming and it doesn't have an EtB. The activated ability seems like a worse life sink than Doom Whisperer's. It looks much more like an EDH card than a standard one to me.
also lotleth giant for the combo finish? ive concocted a 10 point giant on a few occasions
I'll have to double check my list later.
Anyway what's your reanimation suite whiffy? Connive//Concoct has been so good for me.
Ive been grinding it all week, and have slowly moved to a more aggro/midrange golgari pile, but I cant cut mudrotha, its rediculos if it sticks in play for more then 1 untap. i have 4 of both self mill 3 guys, and 4 findbrokers to "reanimate" stuff out of my yard.
Anyway I added more of the Glowspore's back in and it's playing better. Tried 4 Plaugebearer instead of Chupacabra because 4 feels like a lot of mana against boros and it felt fine. Might jam a copy or 2 of the five mana reanimate a 1, 2, and 3 drop spell. Narcomoeba's and Midnight Reaper were too fancy.
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Glowspore Shaman
3 Narcomoeba
4 Charnel Troll
2 Demon of Catastrophes
2 Golgari Findbroker
2 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Doom Whisperer
2 Izoni, Thousand-eyed
2 Molderhulk
3 Necrotic Wound
3 Assassin's Trophy
Planeswalkers: 2
2 Vraska, Golgari Queen
Lands: 25
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Forest
3 Hinterland Harbor
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
4 Woodland Cemetery
2 Plaguecrafter
2 Thief of Sanity
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Mausoleum Secrets
1 Negate
2 Vraska's Contempt
3 Thought Erasure
My other concern with this list is that there is a lot of blue mana in the main and blue only comes out of the board. I feel like unless I'm bringing in the entire board, there's no way I'm going to need that many blue sources. I'm not fantastic with mana bases so I don't know, maybe it's fine? What do you all think of this list? I see from the previous discussion, perhaps Narcomoeba just isn't enough value to warrant a slot. I think with the Demon of Catastrophes and Vraska, Golgari Queen in the deck though, it could be fine as just sacrifice fodder.
+ Watery grave
+ Island
+ FoR/Evo wilds
1 basic for your FoR.. or opponents AssTrophy/FoR/settls